Scituate limits scope of wind-turbine study

Scituate’s Board of Health has decided on a narrow study of the town’s wind turbine, despite requests from residents for a broader analysis.

In a meeting Monday night, Board of Health officials said they were wary of undertaking an extensive study that would provide a more detailed sound analysis, as suggested by residents who say the turbine has harmed their health.

“The methodology will get challenged, results will be challenged, and I don’t know how to interpret results with an invented method,” said board member Michael Vazza.

Vazza recommended sticking with the turbine owner’s suggested analysis, which mainly will assess whether the power-generating equipment meets guidelines set by the state’s Department of Environmental Protection.

Board members also declined to mandate a flicker study,We offer outdoor solar lighting and elegant outdoor lanterns that light up the night effortlessly. which would look at health impacts from the flickering shadows created when the turbine’s blades rotate against the sun, or a survey asking residents whether they have noticed any health affects, both steps sought by neighbors.

Tom Thompson, who has represented the residents, citing problems from the turbine’s operation, said they anticipated the board’s decision. “This is an expected outcome . . . there is no surprise here that the Board of Health would simply embrace the strategy espoused by the wind developer,” he said.

Still to be determined is who will conduct the study. The residents and the turbine’s owner,This is how a skystream captures energy from the wind. Scituate Wind LLC, have brought several recommendations to the table, and Board of Health members said they’ll assess the candidates at a later meeting.

The board made its decision after a steering committee that had been appointed to recommend the scope of the study was unable to reach a consensus.

Siemens installed two colossal offshore wind turbines this week,Marking machines and laser marking machine for permanent part marking and product traceability. demonstrating technology that could have a significant impact on the economics of wind power.

The German company has been developing the turbines, which produce double the maximum power output of its current models, for several years. It has been testing the technology on land, and installed the first ones offshore with the help of a new ship designed specifically for the task. The turbines feature test blades that are 60 meters long, but Siemens intends to employ world-record 75-meter blades eventually.

Yet for offshore wind power to compete with fossil fuels, wind turbines may need to get even bigger. The new turbines generate six megawatts of power in good wind. Several companies are designing 10- and even 15-megawatt machines with 100-meter blades. These blades would reach two-thirds of the way to the roof of the Empire State Building. The push to supersize wind turbines is part of an effort to reduce installation and maintenance costs, which can be far higher than the cost of the turbines themselves. The pictures in this slideshow give a sense of just why installation is so costly.

As political opposition falls away from offshore wind projects, opponents are turning more toward economic arguments against further development of this technology, suggesting it will increase electricity rates and ultimately cost jobs.

As with any new product or technology, the first U.S. offshore wind farm will undoubtedly face steeper costs of construction and development than its successors. But as the industry grows, experience, technological developments,We provide excellent solar led light and LED solar garden lamp. and economies of scale will cause those costs to decline.We offer Laser engraver and cutting machines for processing different materials. Multiple studies of the offshore wind industry in Europe have shown that the “learning rate”—the rate at which the overall cost of offshore wind energy development declines over time—can be as high as 10 percent per year.